example, that the coastal Karankawas, who for various reasons had less bar-gaining power in their struggle for survival, were stereotyped as cannibalsdeserving of extermination, while the Tonkawas, who initially were more eco-nomically useful to Anglo-American settlers, were not, even though historicaldocumentation suggests that the Tonakawas were more routinely practition-ers of ritualistic cannibalism than were the Karankawas. The book concludeswith suggestions as to how geopolitical location, larger economic processes,culturally constructed attitudes and the opportunities and constraints in thelives of individual human actors all affected the trajectories of conquest ineach case. Theoretical perspectives and methodological issues are discussedin two appendices.Himmel's work significantly helps to fill what has too generally been a gap inTexas history, a near-void created by a lack of focus on the Native Americanexperience during the early-to-middle nineteenth century. For the most part,anthropologists have been largely concerned with reconstructing aboriginalnative societies during prehistory and the colonial era. On the other hand, mostregional histories tend to view native societies as marginal to the experiences ofthe various Euro-Americans peoples who settled the region. The experiences ofspecific native societies during the period treated by Himmel have seen littleexplicit investigation, perhaps in part because the outcomes for most native soci-eties-extermination and/or extirpation-were so complete that they left veryfew survivors as a living representatives (and reminders) of earlier cultural pat-terns, and probably also because the regional confrontations between majorEuro-American powers have always been natural magnets for scholarly attentionand popular interest. In explicating a short but critical period during which thelast vestiges of traditional native societies in Texas were supplanted by the mod-ern world system, this book will be of interest for historical sociocultural studiesin Texas and will help to create a better-informed perspective on the NativeAmerican peoples who once lived here.Coastal Archaeological Research, Inc. ROBERT A. RICKLISThe Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West. By Michael L. Tate. (Norman:University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Pp. xx+454. List of illustrations, pref-ace, acknowledgments, conclusion, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN o-806103173-X. $34.95, cloth.)In his 1980 essay, "The Multi-Purpose Army on the Frontier: A Call forFurther Research," Michael L. Tate called upon his fellow scholars to producea broad overview of the United States Army's role in the development of Texasand the American West. For two decades, his request for a full-scale assessmentwent unheeded. Tate finally determined to tackle the problem himself. Hisrichly detailed The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West forcefully documentsthe army's importance in the lives of nineteenth-century westerners. Militaryexplorers, scientists, ethnologists, meteorologists, artists, and writers wereoften "at the forefront" (p. 27) of non-Indian discoveries and did much to